


Love Thy Neighbor

by Feral_Female



Category: Torchwood
Genre: AU, Aliens, Gay Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-01 01:55:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10911951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feral_Female/pseuds/Feral_Female
Summary: It’s been a tumultuous few months for our dashing Captain and his beloved factotum. With Ianto now back in the fold - and his arms - Jack is desperately searching for an explanation for why his lover can skip through the rift with no lasting impact on his health or mental acumen. It’s a question that Captain Harkness has no answers for but he’s determined to get some.As Jack stews over Ianto, a call comes in about a well-respected greenhouse. Ten people have gruesomely murdered each other, the bodies all found locked inside the various hot houses. When Torchwood shows up to investigate, the team finds clouds of moths with incandescent wings innocently flittering around in the greenhouses but no ferocious aliens. Tosh nets a few of the seemingly innocuous insects for further study then the team returns to base, unknowingly taking the cause for the violent crimes of passion into the Hub…This story picks up shortly after “The Bridge”.POSTING NEWS- Since I have some contracted books that need written, I’ll only be posting on Mondays and Thursdays for the near future. Hopefully once I have my professional obligations met I can get back to a more frequent posting schedule. Fingers crossed!





	1. Love Thy Neighbor - Chapter One - Dim Haze of Mystery

**Love Thy Neighbor**

**Chapter One**

**Dim Haze of Mystery**

**Jack**

(Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

“Jack, got a second?”

I glanced up from a pile of papers that my man Friday had piled neatly on my new blotter to see Owen lingering outside my office door. The medic’s dark eyes flicked from me to Ianto, who was standing by my side telling me what form was what and where to sign. I had tried to get him to stay home but no. He was fine. He felt wonderful. He didn’t need any more time off. Nope. Not Ianto Jones, the Welsh Superman. I loved him dearly but the fucking man drove me to drink at times.

“Sure. Come in.” I leaned back in my chair and motioned Owen in. He glanced over his shoulder. Martha peeked around him, her lovely face a little tight. Both she and Owen were in white lab coats that hung unbuttoned over their street clothes. Martha’s plain and pristine, Owen’s covered with little buttons and funky pins. Dr. Jones had been busily working with Owen to break open this mystery of Ianto’s DNA. Yes, I’d called her in.

The fact that he could saunter through rift energy without displaying any signs of dementia, death, or other horrifying ailments as he had was most disconcerting. Being able to do that was just _not_ normal. And trust me, I know not normal. The past few nights I’d lain beside him, listening to him breathing as he slept, mind spinning, trying to work out if that damn ducal slug had changed him in ways that we hadn’t foreseen.

What other explanation could there be? He’d certainly _started_ his employment here fully human. His blood tests – while being common ones – had verified his humanity. Perhaps I should start having extensive DNA testing done on all new team members? Although I was relatively sure my Ianto was _not_ a shapeshifting frog.

I reckon most people don’t have these issues when picking a lover or employee. _‘Hmm, well everything looks good. We’ll just have to get your DNA testing back to confirm you’re not one of those pesky blue toad creatures from the Ass Crack Nebula then we can get to work and/or fucking.’_

Only at Torchwood…

“Perhaps it would be better if we went to the medical bay?” Owen offered then ducked out of sight. I threw a look at Ianto. He shrugged. We both left my office and the miserable paperwork behind to go see what the two in lab coats wanted. Tosh and Gwen lingered in the periphery, obviously curious but not wanting to appear blatant about their nosiness.

The walls and x-ray reader boxes were all filled with images of someone’s internal parts and their genetic codes.

“As you know I’ve been fiddling with Ianto’s DNA over the past several months,” Owen explained then went to stand in the middle of a large blue image of a DNA helix floating on the white-washed wall. “I asked Dr. Jones to take this case over because…well, to be honest, I have no bloody idea how to proceed.”

I glanced at Ianto looking so dapper in a dark-gray pinstripe. His jaw was set. I rested my forearms on the railing that ran around the autopsy area, trying to go for nonchalant to hopefully put my lover at ease. On the autopsy table was one of the ducal slugs. Freezing it had not done it good. It looked like a blackish-blue glob of bread dough that oozed milky liquid. Good thing I’d not eaten within the last hour.

“We already know that his DNA has been affected by the exposure to the space slug. Has something changed?” I enquired. Ianto stayed locked into place a few feet to my left. I caught Tosh and Gwen hiding just outside the autopsy room eavesdropping. I didn’t call them on it. There were few secrets at the Hub. Well, there were a ton inside _my_ head but among the others there were few secrets.

Martha stepped into the floating helix to stand beside Owen. “No, at least we don’t _think_ it’s a change. It’s more of a little surprise lurking in his B form DNA.”

“What’s B form DNA?” Ianto asked then came to stand beside me.

“There are three forms of DNA that are double stranded and connected by interactions between complimentary base pairs,” Owen explained while tapping at the helix sitting between himself and Martha. “The three major forms are A form, B form, and Z form.”

Martha then launched into a rolling litany about dinucleotide structures, helical periodicity, right-hand helixes, major grooves and minor grooves, H bonding, and amino acids.

“The only words I understood in all of that was amino acid,” Ianto said when she ran out of air.

“Oh, right, sorry. I forget that I’m not chatting with other doctors at times.” She blushed prettily. “To get to the core of it, while we’ve been trying to unlock how that ducal slug has altered your DNA we found a variance at the core of your genetic makeup.”

That made me stand up and take extra notice.

“Are you saying that I’m not human?” Ianto spoke up.

“No, no not at all.” Both the doctors fell over themselves to quell the fear plainly heard in Ianto’s voice.

“Then what _are_ you saying?” I demanded. Ianto’s fingers brushed the back of my hand.

“We’re just saying that…” Owen gave Martha a look then exhaled. “We’re saying that we don’t know what it is we’ve found.”

“We’ve spent the last two days searching through all the Torchwood and U.N.I.T. files and have nothing that remotely looks like this variance.” Martha turned to the side and pointed at a tiny group of base pairs of genetic material. “Each of these base pairs should have the same reading on both pairings but they don’t. This little glitch has us stumped. There is nothing in our data bases to even try to compare it to.”

“Do you mean that glitch has been there since I was born?” Ianto asked.

“From the moment of conception,” Owen stated then folded his arms over his chest.

“I’d like to take my findings to London with me and call in some diagnostic geneticists to see if they’ve ever witnessed a code as unique as this. Would that be okay, Ianto?” Martha asked.

“Yes, yes, of course,” he stammered in reply and looked at Owen.

“Sorry, mate, I’ve run out of ideas as to what this variance is but I am relatively sure that it is _not_ going to change your life in any way. It’s been a part of you since sperm met egg,” Owen said and plastered on a doctor’s placating smile.

“Wonderful. My life just gets better and better every day.” With that pronouncement Ianto left the three of us – five if you count the eavesdroppers in the shadows - standing there with our teeth in our mouths.

“Thank you,” I told the medics and then trotted off to find my factotum. He was in my office, standing by my chair, straightening papers. His gaze met mine when I walked in. “I thought about asking if you were okay but it’s obvious that you’re not.”

“Would you be?”

“Well, I already know that _I’m_ one in a million.” The joke fell flat. “Sorry. I did it again, I know.”

“Ill-timed humor is not one of your most appealing qualities, Jack.” He gathered up a stack of forms and shoved them into a thin folder type-box. When he closed the folding file, he shook his head slowly. “Although one of your cockamamie ideas to take my mind off this glorious snippet of good news wouldn’t be frowned upon.”

“I could send the others home early and we could have a naked hide-and-seek championship round. The last time you won you _loved_ the prize I gave you.”

He considered the idea then nodded. “A rousing round of a children’s game followed by mind-numbing sex? Sounds perfect. Let me go file this.”

I gave him a nod and spun around. “Early dismissal students!” I shouted down to the four milling around below. “Gather up your pencils and papers. The headmaster has plans.”

“‘Plans’ is the code word for shagging the tea boy,” I heard Gwen mumble to Martha who giggled behind her hand.

“Mind your manners, Miss Cooper. It’s ‘Agent Tea Boy’ now.” She snorted. Coats were gathered and they were almost out the door when the ping of an incoming police call rolled out of one of Tosh’s computer. Everyone froze. The rift energy indicators on all our computers and phones went off. “Fuck,” I sighed and then signaled Tosh to go check into the police call.

“It looks like a garden center out in Creigiau has called in a report of several bodies locked into greenhouses.” She pulled her glasses out of her bag and slipped them on. “A person coming to pick up flowers discovered them just five minutes ago, says that it looks like someone went crazy with a chainsaw or something. Lots of blood splattered about. The rift spike was minimal. Perhaps just one of the usual burps we’ve been seeing for a year or so.”

They all looked up at me.

“Do we know who the SOCO will be?” I enquired. Tosh began delicately but speedily typing on her keyboard.

“Looks like dispatch has sent out a Bertram Potts.” We all turned to look at Gwen for information on the scene-of-crime-officer that would probably beat us there.

“Bert’s okay. Been doing SOCO work for ages. About to retire if memory serves. Big bloke, ruddy skin, bad teeth.” She wrinkled her nose.

“You’ve just described every Welshman I have ever met,” I commented. Ianto cleared his throat unexpectedly by my side. Damn the man could file quickly. “Present company excluded, of course.”

“Of course,” he deadpanned. “What have I missed?”

“Dead bodies locked into greenhouses, blood, gore, and yet another town with no vowels.” Owen filled in while peeling off his white coat.

“It has several vowels,” Gwen told our medic. Owen rolled his dark eyes.

“Ah.” Ianto replied. I gave him a long look. “Well, so much for mind-numbing sex. Shall we go poke about inside horribly butchered bodies instead?”

“You _do_ have a way of painting a scene with words.” I gave him a weak smile that I hoped conveyed how disappointed I was. “Right. Martha we’ll walk you out to the garage. Let’s grab our necessities, kids.”

Ianto reached over and lifted my coat from the antique rack it hung on. “Here you are, sir.” He held the coat open all proper English butler. I slipped my arms into the sleeves and allowed him to straighten the collar before turning to look at my lover.

“Every time you call me ‘Sir’ like that I’m honor bound to give you an incredible orgasm.”

“If that’s the case I’ll start sprinkling that word about like salt.”

“My sodium intake will quadruple.” I wanted to kiss him so hard he forgot what day it was but I could hear the others rushing about, so I had to make do with getting a shy, seductive smile from Ianto then jogging off, him on my heels. We piled out into the parking garage. I walked Martha to her car as the team stored their toys in the back of the SUV. “As soon as you figure out anything about Ianto…”

“I’ll call. I think it’s wonderfully sweet that you have someone to worry over, Jack. It adds to your appeal.” She patted my cheek. “Are you sure you don’t need a sixth?”

“I’m sure, but thank you. Drive safely.” I closed the driver side door for her.

“Take care of yourself.” Her smile was stunning as she slipped the little red car into gear and backed up.

I stood there eying her bumper as it narrowly missed the fender of my new baby, the black-and-white Austin Healy convertible that I had borrowed. Okay stolen. Seems the owner was an old gent and had found my card in his garage. I offered him an exorbitant price for the car and to rebuild his old shed. He was more than eager for the money and now I owned the sexy little she-devil. A ride out in the country with the top down, the wind blowing through Ianto’s hair appealed, but we had dead people in greenhouses to investigate.

 

**To Be Continued…**

Acknowledgement to Antoine Rivarol for the following quote from which the title for this chapter was taken.

_“It’s the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.”_


	2. Love Thy Neighbor - Chapter Two - The Human Dustcart

**Love Thy Neighbor**

**Chapter Two**

**The Human Dustcart**

**Ianto**

(Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

As much as I love the SUV, my fellow Torchwood agents, and Jack, three in the back was terribly uncomfortable. Perhaps if I had a leaner build like Owen it wouldn’t be as bad but my shoulders were broad and I had to sit folded in on myself to give the ladies room to breathe.

“Tell me again why I can’t ride up front with Jack,” I said as I tried to wiggle my arse off the incredibly sharp thing gouging my balls.

Owen glanced back at me around the front seat. “Because you get to ride Jack every day.”

Jack chuckled and sped around a turn doing ninety. Tosh was thrown into me. I was thrown into Gwen. Gwen was thrown into the door.

“I said ride up front _with_ Jack, not _on_ Jack,” I corrected the medic. Tosh went back to typing on the keyboard in front of her. Gwen resumed texting Rhys, I assumed. With the wedding getting closer, all she did was text people, yell, or cry.

“So far, I’ve got a steady but weak lock on four greenhouses with alien DNA registering,” Tosh said then took a tiny sip of some drink designed to cleanse your system of toxins. She made a terrible face then offered me some. I politely declined with a shake of my head.

“Well they would be steady signatures since they’re locked _in_ the greenhouses,” Owen commented. He always seemed especially cheeky when he got to ride up front.

“Dear God above, how hard can it be for a caterer to understand that we need eight to a table to make the fucking seating plans work out?!” Gwen snarled, thumbs violently smashing out a reply on her mobile. I wished I could scoot closer to Tosh but I was already as close as a man could get to a woman and not be slapped across the face.

“Do you think they’ll be any hornets in these greenhouses?” I asked while trying to slide my hand between my legs to find whatever it was that was jabbing me in the ass.

“Why? Are you allergic?” Jack asked. I saw him glance in the rearview with concern.

“Possibly, I’m not sure, but I have a slight aversion to hornets. I sat on one once when I was eight. Stung me right though my swim trunks. My testicles swelled up to the size of a grapefruit. It was quite painful.”

“I love talking about your testicles, Ianto,” Jack said and then gave me a wicked wink in the rearview.

“Perhaps the rest of us don’t wish to hear about his testicles though,” Owen quickly interjected.

“Did you ever read that book about the men who studied bees in South America? I love insects. For a time in school I thought about studying to become an entomologist. I even have a rather nice collection,” Tosh said, sipped, and then gagged. “Anyone want the rest of this?”

“I’ll take it.” Owen reached back for the bottle. “What’s this supposed to do, anyway?”

“Cleanse your system of toxins,” Tosh replied. “Ianto, what exactly are you doing with your hand between your legs?”

“Yeah, Ianto, I’m supposed to be the one groping around down there,” Jack said while taking the turn into the nursery on two wheels. Gwen smashed into me. I smashed into Tosh. Tosh smashed into the door.

“Something’s been jabbing me in the goods the whole way here.” I found what felt like a pen and slipped it carefully out from under me. When held into the sunlight I saw that it was a scalpel. I leaned up as far as the seatbelt would allow and crammed it under Owen’s nose. “Why is this lying on the back seat?”

“I was looking for that!” He grabbed the blade and tucked it inside his jacket. “Here, this stuff tastes like horse semen.” Owen forced the cleansing drink into my hand.

“Rhys! No, for the love of all that is holy, you _cannot_ go have an ale with Banana Boat and let this all go until I come home! Rhys? Oooooo, I am going to cut off his balls. Give me that fucking scalpel.” Gwen popped her safety belt and lunged over the passenger seat to paw at Owen’s jacket. Jack hit the brakes and we all flew forward.

“Okay, we’re here kids. Let’s all try to act in a professional manner.” Jack looked directly at Owen and Gwen fighting over his jacket. I tried to give Tosh her drink back but she threw her hands into the air and wouldn’t touch it.

“I don’t want to carry this around,” I told Ms. Sato.

“It’s my scalpel! Go get one of your own.”

“But you always clean up after us, Ianto.”

“Give me that bloody blade!”

“So, what, I’m just ‘Ianto the Human Dustcart ‘now?”

“I swear if you tear this jacket I’ll beat your arse!”

“Of _course_ you’re not a human dustcart. You’re just the one who takes care of our garbage.”

“Let loose, Owen!”

“ _CHILDREN!_ ”

We all stopped arguing and wrestling to look at Jack. He was not amused. Not that I would ever tell anyone this, but when Jack asserted his authority like that, it turned me right on.

“Thank you," Jack growled. “Now let’s act like we’re from Torchwood and not a visiting wagon-load from the nearest kindergarten class.”

“We’d call it reception,” I gently corrected and got a glare from the burly American in the RAF greatcoat.

“Whatever.” Jack exited the SUV. We all scurried to do the same, gather the gear, and catch up with him. “If anyone in a checkered cap vomits on one of the bodies I will come unglued,” Jack muttered as we pushed our way through a police cordon in search of the SOCO.

“Torchwood,” I told a skinny bloke in a fluorescent vest who tried to slow me down.

“Never heard of it,” the baby-faced PC snapped, hand to my chest. I stepped away from the hand barring me entry.

“Let them pass,” an older PC said, giving me a dark look as I held the police tape up for Tosh and Gwen to duck under. “Special ops,” I heard the older policeman tell the rookie. “Always showing up, nose in the air, lording it over everyone.”

I wasn’t sure we “lorded” … did we? I saw Jack walking past police without even looking at them. Okay, perhaps we did “lord” a bit but honestly, if the police and/or military didn’t bull in and soil up things as they did, perhaps our attitude would be better. Still though, maybe one of us should try to be polite. One of us aside from Gwen that was.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” I said and dropped the flapping yellow tape back into place.

“Sod off,” the older police officer grunted. Right. So much for polite. “You _and_ that American who leads your snotty team.”

Well. That was actually a few rungs above impolite. Tamping down my temper I strolled onward, coming up to Jack and a bulky man who must be the Bert the SOCO standing in front of greenhouse number one which housed annuals. Lying just on the other side of a locked door was a woman, or what remained of her. The carnage that had been wrought on her was horrid. Her throat had cut open, her left eye gouged out, and her face beaten until it was pulp. Draped over her was another woman in much the same condition.

Jack gave me a quick glance as the scene-of-crime officer filled him in.

“Call came in roughly twenty minutes ago. Bloke over there…” Bert waved a hand in the direction of a reed-thin male, maybe twenty, gabbling to the police, his arms hugging his thin middle. “… claims to have come out to start picking up the flats of flowers for the Duke of Graymark’s upcoming birthday celebration. Seems this is the only place to find this certain type of flower.”

“What kind of flower?” Jack enquired, dropping down into a crouch to look at the one-eyed dead woman staring back at him through the glass door.

“Oh, uh, some African thing?” Bert mumbled, gave me a long look up and down, then dismissed me summarily. That happened all the time. I stood my ground at Jack’s side, holding one of Tosh’s cases although Tosh had hared off with Gwen and Owen to different greenhouses.

“Any chance we can get the name of the rare flower?” Jack asked while pushing back up and wiping his palms on his coat.

“I’ll send a PC over with it. Look, I know that Torchwood--”

“Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be taking it from here. Please clear your people from the area.” Jack flashed his blinding smile at the SOCO then looked at me. “Ianto, you’re with me. We’re going to use the back door.”

“Nothing new there,” I mumbled, got a sassy look from the boss, and then jogged off to stay on Jack’s heels.

“Tosh, Gwen, Owen, what are you seeing in the other greenhouses?” Jack asked, his voice flowing through the new Bluetooth resting in my ear.

“Bloody carnage at greenhouse three,” Gwen whispered, her voice a little thick.

“Same at the fourth greenhouse,” Tosh replied. “Doors locked tight but I can see three bodies scattered about.”

“Greenhouse two is a fucking gladiatorial ring minus the lions and togas,” Owen stated as we rounded the end of the greenhouse closest to the fence.

Steam rolled off several piles of landscaping bark to our left. Jack gave the door a look then raised his left arm and flipped open his wrist strap. He tapped a button or two and the lock on the door sprang open.

“Handy,” I said. Jack nodded.

We dug into Tosh’s case for latex gloves. Jack then opened the door slowly. The interior of the greenhouse was dark. The smell of blood wafted out on a cloud of hot, humid, sweetly scented air. Jack dug into one of the deep pockets of his coat, fished out a torch, freed his Webley from its holster, and stepped inside. I placed Tosh’s case by the door, reached into my jacket and found my gun then followed Jack into the moonlit greenhouse.

 

**To be continued…**


	3. Love Thy Neighbor - Chapter Three - Moon Dust on the Wing

**Love Thy Neighbor**

**Chapter Three**

**Moon Dust on the Wing**

**Jack**

 (Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

 

“Let’s see if we can locate some lights.” Dark places with lots of plants make me twitchy. I’ve never quite gotten over that ambush on Trendar Eleven when a pack of wild Trendarian hogs had burst out of the brush unexpectedly. I’d ended up with a gash on my thigh that took months to heal properly due the bacteria on those tusks. Geirr had been nearly eviscerated, and John still carries the foot-long scar across his lower back where one of the beasts tried to rip out his spine. We never did find the fugitive from the Time Agency. We _did_ get into some deep shit for losing her and never even got paid the promised gold dust for our medical costs. Ah, the good old days…

Ianto’s flashlight roamed the walls. Mine went back and forth, shining on the rows and rows of flowering plants. An unusual sound grabbed my attention. I threw a quick look up. Flittering against the arched roof was a small cloud of moths. When the moon peeked around a slow-moving cloud their wings seemingly lit up, the moon’s glow turning the rapidly beating wings a brilliant blue. I’d never seen such a beautiful thing. It was like their wings had been sprinkled with moon dust.

“Ianto, do you see these moths?” My gun slowly fell to my side I was so mesmerized.

“They’re beautiful,” Ianto murmured. “I found the light switch.” He jogged off, gun high. I quickly brought mine back up, forcing my mind from the moths back to whatever might be prowling around inside this greenhouse.

“Anyone else seeing moths in their respective greenhouses?” I enquired then blinked when the lights hanging from the ceiling flickered to life. The carnage was even worse with the lights on. Blood and bits of flesh had been scattered around like grisly confetti.

“Moths, yeah, looking to get out,” Owen muttered. “Christ, these two have been ripped to bits. I’m going to grab some samples from the wounds, see if I can find any alien saliva residue.”

“Good. Tosh, Gwen? I need to hear from you two,” I said as we crept closer to the bodies by the front door, Ianto now ahead of me, his gun pointed at the corpses as he waited for me arrive.

“I’m fine, Jack,” Gwen replied but she didn’t sound fine. She always had the strongest reactions to violent crime scenes. That was a large part of why she fit into our little ensemble cast so well. She had empathy which – I’ve been told – a few of us lack. Sometimes our Gwen had _too_ much rapport with the deceased or hurting. I often wondered if she had a psychic ability that enabled her to have such an affinity for those we encountered, be they dead or alive. Maybe I’m just jaded and have seen too much… “I think someone went at the others in here with a cricket bat or something… ah. No, a shovel was used. There are… there’s bit of brain – I’ll be fine.”

“Yes, I’m good as well. Running a quick scan on the bodies in here to see if any of them are aliens in disguise. Oh yes, I have the moon moths as well in here. They’re lovely. Would you mind if I net some for my collection? I’ve not seen this type before. They must be nocturnal flyers but those wings just seem to glow…” Tosh drifted off.

I stepped up to the two dead women Ianto had a bead on. “I don’t think they’re going to leap up at you. This isn’t _The Walking Dead_.”

“Better safe than sorry as my mum says,” he stiffly replied.

“Can’t argue that,” I muttered. “Tosh, feel free to grab a moth or two if you want. Has anyone seen anything that would account for that weak rift spike we had?”

I got three negatives so I chalked it up to a rift belch and focused on the two dead women. Ianto and I poked around a bit and concluded that they’d done this to each other. Their fingernails were packed with flesh as were their teeth. I gently let the top lip of the woman smashed against the door drop back into place.

“Maybe this _is_ a zombie show after all,” I said as we stared at the dead women, the moths steadily beating themselves to death overhead. “Do we have the samples we need, kids?” I asked, peeling off my gloves and shoving them into one of my coat pockets.

I got three affirmatives and so we left, leaving the clean-up to the police, who seemed just thrilled to be able to accommodate us. The ride back to the Hub was subdued, everyone processing the gruesome scenes. Tosh was the only one not withdrawn and that was because of the jar of moon moths she had on her lap.

“Where did you find a net?” I asked Tosh as we lingered at a red light, the pulsating blue lights along the windshield sitting dormant now.

“We carry one now,” Ianto replied and I tossed him a quick look in the rearview. “One never knows when a net will come in handy.”

That made me smile a bit. God but it was good having him back. Losing him had just about done me in. I’d spent a few desperate nights alone in the Hub after all those months had gone by with no clue about his whereabouts, trying to decide if I should put my Webley in my mouth and pull the trigger, but what good would that do? I’d just come back with a killer headache and no Ianto.

Yes, I knew that someday I’d lose him but I wanted that to be due to old age, after we’d spent a lifetime loving each other. Maybe I needed to think about something a bit more rooted? I studied him in the rearview as he talked quietly with Tosh about her moths. What would he say if I broached the subject of living together officially? Sure, I spent all my time at his flat now, and ninety percent of my belongings had gravitated there as well but there was still that ten percent of me at the Hub. Did that mean I wasn’t ready to commit to moving in with--

“Jack, the light’s green,” Gwen pointed out from my left. I’d made Owen ride in the back. Had to give each child a chance to ride up front with teacher or they bickered.

“Just seeing who was paying attention,” I glibly remarked. The rest of the ride fell back into soft whispered conversations between Tosh and Ianto, who seemed to be growing quite close. Probably because of the shared Chadwick bond. I’d have to get to know that young man better. After all, he was shagging my Tosh. I had a bit of a fatherly need to protect the women who worked with me. I know, they didn’t need or probably want me charging in if someone hurt them but they both meant the world to me. As did Owen. And then there was Ianto… So, should I bring that topic up? Was he ready? He seemed ready but then again, he was _years_ ahead of me in terms of acceptance of our relationship even though he was much, much younger. The man dreamed about wedding vows for Christ sake. Just thinking about marriage made me slightly queasy.

“How goes the wedding plans?” I asked Gwen just for something to talk about that wasn’t me, Ianto, and further domestic commitments.

“Don’t ever get married,” she huffed, clearly out of sorts by the experience in the nursery. “Just live with the person. This is a fucking nightmare on a biblical scale.”

I glanced at Ianto and met his gaze in the rearview. “Well,” I said as I looked away from those all-to-knowing blue eyes, “at least things can’t get any worse, right?”

“Oh, I’m sure something will pop up the morning of the wedding to throw things into full chaos,” Gwen mumbled then fell back into herself.

Right. Okay. Guess I’d just turn the music up for the rest of the trip home. Which is what I did. I made the team listen to Bing Crosby’s Greatest Hits. Owen nearly killed himself exiting the SUV when it was parked.

“Why do we only have your music in there?” He waved a hand around as a light rain began to blow into the parking area with a dismal new day. They all looked like I felt -  haggard and tired.

“Because it’s my car,” I pointed out then sauntered into the Hub. The others followed, Owen still bitching about the unfairness of life and how bossy the boss was. The mood began to lighten a bit once we were back underground, odd as that may seem. “I want the results from all your tests and samples by the end of the day.”

They all murmured sleepily in agreement and I went to my office to do some work. That lasted about fifteen minutes. My mind wouldn’t settle to anything so I decided to slip down to the game room, moving past Ianto and Tosh who were examining moths in one of Owen’s labs. I stopped walking and backtracked. All of them were in there, smiling softly as the moon moths delicately walked over their hands, fingers, and heads. It was good to see them looking less melancholy.

“Jack, come in and let one walk on you,” Tosh called.

“They leave glowing dust on your fingers,” Owen remarked then grinned at me. I wondered if that was what the young Owen had looked like, his dark eyes brimming with pure joy instead of that simmering cynicism now lodged into his breast.

“And if we turn off the lights…” Gwen flicked the lights off and they all held up fingers that glowed white-blue just like the moon.

I stepped into the lab. Ianto loaned me his moth. It clung to my fingertips, particles of bluish-white dust dropping off to my skin. It’s antennae looked like frosty feathers.

“Very cool. I take it you all have your results in from the nursery?” I asked while passing the moth back to Ianto then rubbing the dust between my fingers and admiring how it glowed. All four of them started falling over themselves to make up something good. I chuckled at their weak excuses. “Right, well, put the bugs away. I _am_ paying you to work. Maybe I need to start beating you all?”

“Didn’t you do that to Ianto already today?” Owen commented as he slipped his hand back into Tosh’s large bug jar and gently shook the moth off.

“I said ‘beat you all’ not ‘beat you all _off’_ ’. Totally different thing.” I watched Ianto duck his head as a blush probably raced up into his face. Pity it was dark and I couldn’t see the rosy hue. The others snickered and I headed down a few levels to lose myself in some old-time arcade games.

I was the only one who spent any time down here now. Back in the seventies and eighties this kind of room would have been hopping, but nowadays? Everyone had games on their phones so who needed a game that you had to walk to and feed change into? After turning on the lights I gazed around at the choices. Two pinball games, a foosball table, air hockey, and several arcade games such as _Pac-Man, Galaxian, Donkey Kong, Centipede_ , and _Space Invaders_ which was my favorite. Not to brag but I _did_ hold the top seven high scores in _Space Invaders._

I opted to try my hand at some pinball first. The bright lights, bells and whistles, along with having to use some strong body language appealed. Also, it was more reflexive which meant I could let my mind wander a bit, which I suspected it needed to do. I was baffled by the murders at the nursery. Had anyone ever gotten me the names of that rare African flower? Could that be the cause? You wouldn’t believe the things that I’ve seen turn people against one another. I subconsciously scratched at my cheek as the sensation of tiny wires wiggling through my skin leaped to mind. I then pushed that memory away to focus on current events.

I played and pondered, moving from one game to the next, until I was standing in front of _Space Invaders_. Probably an hour had passed, perhaps more. I tended to lose track of time when I was down here gaming. Eventually I got my mental ducks all lined up though. After I killed a few thousand aliens I’d get the police to forward me all the information they had on the flowers and the kid who had found the bodies. I’d go talk to the lad who had shown up to pick up flowers and then I’d head off to the nearby botanical society to visit with Edward Skillson, a rather reserved but handsome botanist who I’d collaborated with before on occasion, and talk about the rare African flowers.

Shame I’d not be able to check Edward’s stamen on this visit as I had before a few times. I was spoken for now and while Eddie was tempting in a sultry academic way, he paled in comparison to Ianto. I was now half of a couple. That word still tasted bad to me but there was no other term that worked as well in this time. The need to label everything and everyone still confused me.

I pushed a quarter into the game, cleared my mind of all the monkey chatter, and started blasting tiny little spaceships. I was well on my way to reaching a new high score when the door behind me creaked open. The dampness in the Hub rusted everything in short order. I threw a look over my shoulder. Ianto stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable save for his eyes. They glistened with either passion or anger. Had I done something to make him mad? I didn’t recall but it was hard to say. He was quite tender-hearted at times. Maybe it had been the beating him off comment…

“You want me for something?” I asked then swatted the side of the game when I lost my chance to get another high score.

“Yes, yes I do.”

 

**To Be Continued…**

 


	4. Love Thy Neighbor - Chapter Four - Flickers of a Dark Fire

**Love Thy Neighbor**

**Chapter Four**

**Flickers of a Dark Fire**

**Ianto**

 (Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

 

 

 

Jack folded his arms over his chest and cocked an eyebrow. “So, what was it you wanted?”

I shut and locked the door then walked over to him, stepping around the billiards table while never taking my sight from his.

“You,” I said then placed a hand to the center of his chest, right above his crossed arms, heel of my hand to his sternum, and shoved with all my strength. He stumbled back into the _Space Invaders_ game, his blue eyes growing round. “I want you.”

He began talking. I took his head between my hands, tipped it slightly, and then covered his mouth with mine, swallowing up the question he had been about to ask. God but I needed him _so_ badly. I needed his body tangled up with mine. I needed to hear him panting and groaning my name as he came down my throat. I needed to hear him say he loved me over and over and over and over…

“Ianto, what the hell?” He broke the kiss. His words were intended to be sharp but they lacked conviction. He wasn’t mad about me rubbing my hard cock up against his. Not Jack. He loved having sex in odd places - naughty places - places where people could walk in. Said it added to the sex by ramping up the danger. Buses, alleyways, his office, by the coffee station, behind Buckingham Palace. Oh yes, Jack loved danger and sex. And me. Yes, me and only me. I had to hear him say it. Now.

“Tell me you love me,” I huffed then took another deep taste of his mouth. He was incredibly willing, eager even. His tongue slid over mine as we sparred for control. I gave it to him after a bit because he thrived on being in charge as much as I adored him having it.

“Ianto…” he groaned when I nipped along the thick cords in his neck, his fingers roaming over my sides and hips, keeping my stiff prick next to his.

“Tell me you love me,” I insisted, tonguing along his ear then licking a wet path down the side of his throat. I palmed his cock. His big body shuddered and his fingers bit into my hips. “Tell me you love me, Jack.”

“Yes, Christ, I love you. Get on your knees.” He released my hips and grabbed my shoulders, shoving me down to a kneeling position. As soon as my knees hit the floor, I had his fly open and his prick out. “Look up at me when you…Ah, hell yes, use your tongue like that again.”

He tasted amazing. Masculine…salty… Jack. I took him into my mouth then suckled hard, wrapping my fingers around the length of him that I couldn’t swallow.

“Look up at me.” I did and he moaned deeply, his fingers now combing through my hair. “Christ you are a beautiful man, Ianto Jones.”

I pulled off him wetly. “Even more beautiful when I have your cock in my mouth?” I asked then ran the tip of my tongue over the head of his prick.

“Always beautiful,” he replied breathlessly, his hips rolling as he tightened his grip on my skull. I didn’t mind when he went too deep on occasion. There was something about hearing myself choking on his cock that made the experience that much hotter. “Always beautiful,” he murmured as his release grew closer. His praise flooded my heart, easing the pain that having to look at her had broiled up. Fucking slut bitch always prowling around throwing looks or leading Jack off to have secret talks. Whore. Jack’s hips punched forward as he came. I gagged and swallowed, eager to suck him dry, to show him that I was the better lover. Who could please a man better than another man?

His grip on my head grew slack. I licked his cock clean, watching him watching me. “You’re delicious,” I whispered then ran my tongue over the still weeping head of his prick. Jack moaned. It was a low moan, soft and erotic, that he only made when he was slipping out of the intensity of an orgasm. I made him make that sound. All the time. Could she? Doubtful.

“Are you here looking for a raise?” he teased as I got to my feet. It was Jack that kissed me as soon as I was standing. I embraced him tightly as he sucked on my tongue, his palms going to my ass.

“No, I just love you. Tell me again that you love me and not her,” I pleaded, nipping at his bottom lip.

“Her who?”

Gwen hit the door like a two-fisted tornado, pounding madly and shouting Jack’s name. Jack startled slightly. I rolled my head toward the locked door then pulled him closer still. The miserable slut. She just couldn’t keep her hands off him, could she? If she touched him I’d kill her as brutally as I could. Jack was mine. She knew that. Like shagging Owen while living with Rhys wasn’t enough, she also had to try to get Jack into her bed? Well fuck that.

“What the hell is the matter with her?” Jack snapped, breaking free and turning to tuck and zip. I was torn between shielding him from her or pulling out my gun and shooting the bitch through the door. Jack stalked around me as I debated. The door was unlocked and yanked open and in she came, all gasping doe eyes and heaving breasts. Her gaze touched on Jack affectionately and then moved to me. All the tenderness left her when she looked at me.

“Jack, oh thank God, I’d thought you’d gone missing. You do sneak off at the worst times,” she purred, slipping her arm through his and leading him to the now open door. “I’ve got the information on those flowers you asked for. Ianto, why don’t you run off and brew up some coffee?”

“Why don’t you get your hands off him and go paw your fiancé?” I replied. Her smile faded. Jack gave us both searching looks then shook free from Gwen’s grasp.

“Oh please, go make some coffee. You know, actually do the work that you were hired for and leave the technical things to those of us with training,” she fired back.

I eyed the pool cues hanging from the wall beside me. Beating her head in with one would be easy. Then using the tip to gouge out those eyes that were always touching on Jack with such need and desire…

“Okay, that’s enough sniping at each other.” Jack looked from me to Gwen. “I’m not sure what’s happening with you two, but whatever it is, I want it worked out before I get back.”

“You’re leaving?” She and I asked at the same time. I reached for a pool cue. Yep, she was going to die. How was Jack’s plans any of her business? They weren’t that’s how. He was mine.

“I am.” Jack dared us both to speak with a glaring look.

Gwen stomped off like the spoiled brat of a child that she is. My hand fluttered back to my side. Maybe I wouldn’t need to kill her after all. But then again, maybe I should. She’d just come slithering back, flashing her tits at my man if I allowed her to live. Maybe I should go for something less graphic? No. The bloodier the better. A baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire ala that zombie show Jack and I had been discussing in that green--

“Please tell me this is not about you still being jealous of me and Gwen.” Jack’s clipped tone yanked me from the pleasant daydream about a Louisville Slugger meeting Gwen’s whorish face.

“You’re mine,” I reminded him. I instantly knew that was the wrong reply. His handsome face tightened in anger.

“Okay, this kind of bullshit is not acceptable, Ianto.” He stepped closer then jabbed me in the chest with a finger. “I thought we had moved past all that insecurity of yours but it seems not.” I began to speak. He talked right over me. God, he was so powerful and in control right now. I wanted him inside me, telling me what to do, claiming me as his. “No, no feeble excuses. Now I want you to get your head out of your ass and go find Gwen and fix this before it poisons the team. Got it?”

“Yes, yes, got it.”

He thundered off before I could touch him one more time.

Poison the team. That had merit…

 

**To be continued…**


	5. Love Thy Neighbor - Chapter Five - Doth the Bard Speak True?

**Love Thy Neighbor**

**Chapter Five**

**Doth the Bard Speak True?**

**Jack**

 (Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

 

I needed a damn drink of something with a _really_ high proof.

Bursting into my office to grab my coat, I was this close to ripping into the next person who stuck their face into mine. Toshiko slid into my office as I was jamming my arm into a heavy, woolen sleeve. She looked edgy and not in that offbeat, avant-garde way.

“Jack, can I go home? I need to go home.” She was practically panting her anxiety was so great.

“Why? What’s happened?” I shucked my coat up over my shoulders and hurried around my desk to take her cold hands in mine. “Is it Chadwick?”

She worried her bottom lip and nodded. “I need to go home and make sure he still loves me.” Tears welled in her lovely brown eyes.

“Is he cheating on you?” I would personally whip the whelp like a rented mule if he so much as—

“Maybe. Ah, God, I don’t know. Do you think he is? Probably. I’m so old and so ugly and he’s so young and sexy. Please, let me go home and see him. Please, Jack, please.” She was utterly heartbroken.

“Of course, go home and work things out.” I leaned down to press a kiss to her wet cheek. She began to cry harder and then ripped away from me and ran out of my office. What the hell was wrong with everyone suddenly? Had someone piped angst gas into my base?

“Alright, just so we’re clear on one thing, I have really just about had it with this shit.” Owen stalked in, flung a handful of my music CD’s from the SUV at me and then thundered off.

“Right. Good to see you too.” I mumbled and bent down to pick up the discs then placed them on my desk. Gwen cut me off at the door. She’d been crying as well.

“Jack, I have the information about the flowers you wanted.” I looked into dewy hazel-brown eyes and felt my initial upset with her wavering. She seemed pulled together and had, in all honesty, just been reacting to Ianto’s petty behavior. Still, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her or anyone at the moment.

“Send it to my phone.”

She grabbed my arm as I moved to step around her. “Jack, about what happened…”

“Let it go, Gwen.”

“But I need to let you know how I feel about--”

“Right now I don’t care how anyone feels.” Her beautiful eyes widened as if she could not fathom me being so callous to her. “Just...” I inhaled then let the breath out slowly. “Just give me some space to work off this anger.”

“Yes, okay. You _should_ be angry at him, Jack. He’s a jealous, insecure, whiny bastard who will only get us all killed one day due to his lack of--”

Her vehemence took me aback. “You need to stop before you say something that there will be no coming back from. Whatever you two are bickering about it needs to be handled.” She opened her mouth. I walked away from her. Owen gave me a sharp look as I rolled past his work station. “Not another thing from you either.”

“Oh, you’ll be hearing from me soon enough. Cocky prick and your stupid music,” he murmured under his breath as he pounded on the keyboard to his computer. I doubled back and got my face right into his, hands gripping the arms of his office chair. Those dark eyes were cold as they bored into me.

“I’m this close to kicking all of you out the door, so don’t push me.”

“You don’t scare me, Jack.”

“Then you’re a fucking idiot because I should.”

I shoved him and his chair back then got my ass out the door before I ran into Ianto and totally came unhinged. The warm air blowing off the bay did nothing to calm me down. I stood on the pier staring out at the water and the seagulls as my mind tried to sort out the sudden unrest among my team. Ianto’s shit I understood. I’d honestly thought he’d worked out his insecurity issues when it came to him and me since there had been little sign of it for months.

The sigh that left me was heavy and long. I’d handled him badly. I knew it now that the scarlet haze of anger was abating. Ianto was young, a babe compared to me if I’m being brutally honest. He’d never been in a relationship with a man before. He had been abused as a child by a father who – well, we won’t go there right now since that would only infuriate me again. He had lost the first woman that he had truly loved. I’d been one of the people who had killed that woman.

These things were known to me when I’d first stepped into this insane but overwhelming thing with Ianto Jones. Yet my passion and desire to be with him had blinded me to his issues. No, not blinded. Blinded would indicate that I hadn’t seen his foibles and I had. I knew mixing him with me was going to be something just shy of incredibly insane yet monumentally wonderful. My desire to be with Ianto had been akin to be being caught in the gravitational pull of a heavenly body. No matter how you pushed the thrusters to break free there was no escape. Did that make Ianto my moon? He _did_ bring light to the darkness of my nights…

I glanced back at the information center, the wind grabbing my coat and whipping it around my legs. I thought to go back and find him, take him in my arms and tell him that I understood where he was coming from. I didn’t like it but I understood it. Maybe it would be better to wait and let him get his thoughts tidied up though. The man did like to be tidy. Yes, that seemed like the right way to handle Ianto. As for the others? Who the shit knew how to proceed with them?

“I really need a shot,” I told one of the gulls who were bobbing around beneath me on the bay’s dark depths hoping for a snack.

The shot never materialized. I did stop at a corner store for a bottle of spring water. Guess that would have to suffice. Gwen had sent me the information on the African flowers. They were simple African violets so no invasive alien plant creatures there. I made a fast run out to Splott to talk with Dwight Smith, the kid who had found the bodies.

He had terrible acne and a pronounced lisp but was an affable fellow. He kept staring at me and blushing as he stammered and lisped his way through the story. According to Dwight he’d arrived to pick up the flats of violets on time. When no one had responded to his shouts, he went off to search the greenhouses, assuming he’d find the employees in them. He had, but not in any way that poor Dwight could have imagined. I thanked him for his time and went back to the SUV to think while the soft strains of Glenn Miller’s orchestra floated around me.

There really wasn’t any point in going out to talk to Eddie the botanist now. The flowers were common enough plants so they held no clues. Dwight had been eager to talk to me but had little to pass along to help the investigation in any way. So, where did that leave us? It left us listening to “String of Pearls” while sitting in Splott, which, according to Ianto, was pounced “Sploe” by estate agents. The man was always in my thoughts…

I had the makings of a tension headache forming at the base of my skull. It always irked me to have hand over an investigation to the police but it seemed like there was nothing here that would require Torchwood to be the main investigative agency in charge.

Maybe it would behoove me to haul my ass back to the Hub and find Ianto. Maybe I could remind my lover that jealousy doth mock the meat it feeds on. He’d get that right off book-hound that he is. Or maybe it would be better for me to while away a couple more hours before I went back to base. Ianto and Gwen would need time to work up the courage to talk to each other. Owen…well, Owen seemed to just be in one of his funks. Hopefully when I went back to the base he wouldn’t shoot me in the face. Although, given the headache now grabbing my brain, a bullet to the frontal lobe might be an improvement. It was amazing how easily a person could talk themselves out of facing something uncomfortable. 

Closing my eyes to try to head off the pounding pain creeping up the back of my skull, I let my mind wander and touch down where it would, strains of “Little Brown Jug” pulling on old memories and blurring them. The pain rocketed to nearly unbearable levels. A choked groan fell out of me as my head tried to split down the middle.

 There was a moment or two during the worst of the pain that I had violent, churning, gruesome visions. Ghastly images of slaughtering anyone who came near me sent triggers of pleasure through me. Oh yes, choking the life out of Dwight Smith from Splott really appealed now. As did going home to find Ianto and tying him to the bed so that I could show him some of the old torture techniques John Hart and I were so well trained in. Knives. Yes, slim, sharp knives slid under his beautiful white skin as I fucked him to death. No, really. _To death_. As in being deep inside him as he drew his last breath and bled out all over –

The agony reached its peak. I screamed and grabbed my head trying to keep the two halves from flying apart. Then…it was gone. I barely got the driver’s side door open before I threw up. Yep, it was a great ego building moment. Jack Harkness, head of Torchwood, on his hands and knees in the middle of Hinton Street in scenic Splott, tossing his cookies.

“Ah shit,” I coughed when I was done vomiting. The sleeves of my coat were soiled and my mouth tasted like I’d been sucking on the ass end of a dead carp. I dragged the back of my hand over my lips and crawled back into the SUV, my limbs weak and shaky. What the hell had _that_ been about? I tugged the door shut before the smell of vomit made me sick again. My stomach twisted and knotted, my throat burned, and my eyes watered, but the pain and madness in my head was gone.

“That was bizarre,” I mumbled as I cracked open my spring water, rinsed, opened the window, and spit. I did that several times then drained the bottle with strong gulps.

I’d not experienced anything like that since that time John and I had been exposed to an alien virus that had tried to wiggle past our immunities. See, Time Agents are vaccinated against all known sicknesses. This way you can travel to a pox-infested planet in pursuit of an outlaw and not get pox and die which would cost the Agency money to train your replacement. So, in addition to our natural immunities from being part of an advanced time and culture, we also were inoculated against things that most people would never encounter. Not everything, of course. I had nearly died from the bacteria on those miserable tusks, but most sickness was of no major concern to us.

My head gently fell back to the rest. I pushed the button to close the window. Vomit and Splott was not a good combination right not. The sounds of the orchestra playing on the stereo and the slowing of my heart began to ease me a bit. My thoughts sharpened and began methodically trying to recall the details of the day John and I had been nearly crippled by a tiny microbe on an undocumented planet. We’d tracked a felon – or a person the Agency had tapped as a felon – to a small rock on the south side of a space station. The name of the dismal planet escaped me. There were Roman numerals… but it was nothing but a toxic little chunk of shit with poisonous gases and life forms that spewed forth from heated geysers and latched onto your skin.

 They had been tiny little ticks of some sort. I shuddered at the memory of having to pluck them from our skin after we’d fled that planet with tails tucked. There had been something in the saliva of the ticks that had entered our bloodstream and battled with the immunities we both had. We had laid together on a thin bed on that space station as our bodies fought off the invading virus. Fevered and doubled over in pain, we both nearly passed out before our bodies amped up the defense and killed off the virus inside us. The intensity of the headache I’d just suffered through felt very similar to the tick-induced migraines Hart and I had suffered through.

But I’d not encountered any aliens over the past couple of hours. The greenhouses had been scanned and while there had been that blip on the rift spike indicator nothing out of the ordin—

The moths. The dust on our skin. I’d bet the Hub that sparkly moon dust was absorbed through the skin. For some reason I may never know it made humans mad. Stark raving mad. Bark at the moon mad. Did the moths feed off the remains? Drink the blood? Or were they just innocent alien insects who didn’t interact well with humans?

“Damn it, Jack, how did you not see it?” I growled at myself as I sat up. I'd not seen it because I'd been tangled up in personal crap with my lover. This is why I tried to stay far away from falling in love with my employees. It distracted me from the important things. God dammit. My head spun a bit. I wiggled out of my sour coat and threw the offensive thing into the back. Cranking the engine over, I slammed the SUV into gear and sped away from Hinton Street with all due haste, tapping my earpiece while barking out commands.

“Ianto, I’m going to need you to do some research into the various lunar moths that are normally found in Wales. Gwen, you’re with Ianto. Owen, I hope you took a brain sample from one of the victims because I think we might have some aliens to blame this on. I’ll call Tosh. We’re going to need her expertise in entomology.” No one responded. I tapped my earpiece and repeated my directives. Still nothing. Anxiety bubbled to life in my now empty stomach. “Ianto? Come on, babe, pick up.”

Silence. It was unnerving. I skidded up to a stop sign, and was almost halfway around the turn that would lead me to the Hub when another thought hit me in the face. If the moths were the cause of my bloody and aggressive thoughts were they still in the greenhouses or had they escaped and were now out among the population of Creigiau? I sat midway through the intersection not sure how to proceed. I called Tosh while waving the jackass hitting his horn behind me around. Her boyfriend answered her phone.

“Jack, Christ, I’m glad you called,” Chadwick said in lieu of a proper greeting. “What kind of otherworldly shit has Tosh been exposed to?”

“Is she okay?” I could hear her whimpering in the background.

“No, not in the least. Past half hour she’s been hanging off me like a lemur. Talking about killing me then herself if I ever leave her. She’s not joking either.”

“Here’s what I need you to do. Get Tosh back to the Hub. You might be the only one there with a clear head. Do not let any of my team kill each other.”

“Oh sure, right, that’s a walk in the bloody park, that is. Just stop four people with firearms and hand-to-hand combat skills from offing each other. Fucking hell,” he huffed then spoke to Tosh on the side. “Yes, it’s Jack. I’m going to work with you, won’t that be fun. Yes, pet, I love you that much. Bloody hell, what is going on here, Jack?”

“Just get her to the Hub. I’ll be there as soon as possible. Oh, and call Martha Jones to come over from London in case there are any injuries.” As much as I wanted to get back to base where my heart and soul was my job was to protect the world from aliens. The good of the many outweighing the good of the few and all that honorable shit Vulcan’s say in movies. I’d sacrifice the most important thing in the world to me to keep this planet safe if necessary. _God, please don’t let that be necessary. I just got him back…_

“If your boyfriend kills me I’ll haunt you. Just wanted you to know that,” he said as I texted him Martha’s number.

“You’ll have to get in line. There’s a long queue of ghosts that follow me around.” I ended the call, cranked the wheel sharply, and raced off to the greenhouses all the while trying to get someone – _anyone_ – at the Hub to reply to me.

 

 

**To be continued…**

 


	6. Love Thy Neighbor - Chapter Six - Mothership

**Love Thy Neighbor**

**Chapter Six**

**Mothership**

**Ianto**

(Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

I tried. Hand to God, I did try. I’d sequestered myself away in Jack’s office and was trying my best to concentrate on my paperwork. I’d muted my phone because the miserable ringtone made me want to pierce my eardrums. But the steady pounding of a killer headache combined with the mind-splitting volume of Led Zeppelin’s _Mothership_ throbbing through the Hub had me close to the edge. I like Led Zeppelin, truly I do, but each riff Jimmy Page laid down made me want to go find Owen and shove a pen into each of his ears so that he knew how my head felt.

Things had held together through _D’Yer Maker_ and _No Quarter_ well enough. The bloody fantasies had been kept at bay as I scribbled notes on papers. My head ached so badly I could barely read what I had written but Jack had said he wanted this done, so I was doing it so he’d be happy and keep loving me. He’d also said fix the thing with Gwen but if I saw her now and she spoke to me, I’d lash out just to silence her.

So, yes, all was barely under control until _Communication Breakdown_. There was just something about the pitch of Robert Plant’s voice and the lengthy Page solo that went through my head like a hot railroad spike. I pushed to my feet. Jack’s desk chair rolled into the wall with a crash. I picked my gun up off his desk then walked to the door and pulled it open. The music was even louder out here. I flipped off the safety and aimed at Owen as he busted another one of Jack’s CD’s into bits with a hammer.

I pulled the trigger just as he jerked to the side in some sort of contorted dance of victory. The bullet shattered his computer screen. The medic hit the floor. I got a bead on him scrabbling under Tosh’s work station. The pain inside my brain was making my eyes water. Someone placed the barrel of a gun at the base of my skull.

“If you pull that trigger I’ll put a bullet into your head,” Gwen said with cold assurance.

“Go ahead,” I growled as one song ended and another began. I winced in agony as _Whole Lotta Love_ blasted through my thumping head. “At least I’ll have whittled down the men you’ve fucked while professing love to another by one.”

“Please, spare me your bravado. As if you’d have the balls to shoot anyone without Jack at your side to whisper encouragements.” She shoved the barrel into my head just a bit harder.

“I’ve shot Owen before,” I reminded her then dropped into a crouch and spun.

 She was fast, I’ll give her that, but the bullet that she’d hoped would rip through my head ricocheted off the tower, sending water and bits flying into the air. I took her down at the knees, wrapping my arms around her legs. She fell hard and whined in pain as we rolled around on the floor, each of us trying to get our guns up. Gwen was smaller and weaker yes, but she was running on the same hateful rage that I was now, I assumed. She managed to get an elbow into my face as I shimmied up over her. My gun skittered across the floor. She wiggled hers up and I knocked it out of her hand. I felt no remorse hitting her in the face. Just as she felt none driving her foot into my chest and kicking me off into the wall. The shelves that held all of Jack’s odd alien paws snapped in half. I rolled out of the way to avoid formaldehyde in the face.

“Is there a reason that you’re being such a bitch?” I asked as I pushed up from the puddle and preserved paws, the strong smell of formaldehyde now soaked into my suit.

“Maybe I just really hate you and your mewling ways?” She spat blood to the floor then wobbled up to her trainers, her bottom lip busted wide open. “Maybe I despise the way you hang all over Jack as if we don’t all know he’s shagging you on a damn hourly basis. Or maybe I just want to shove you down a flight of stairs so you’ll stop being so fucking well-dressed all the time.”

I smiled and that seemed to push a button inside her head. She came at me like a feral cat just let loose from a box: all nails, teeth, and wild hair. We hit the wall hard. My head slapped the damp cinderblocks. A flash of incredible pain blinded me for a moment. During that span of a few seconds Gwen delivered a right hook to my jaw that pushed the pain level from severe to worst pain possible. You know those charts in the doctor’s office with the colored faces? I was now firmly in the red-faced, agony-riddled end of the fucking chart and it was all because of this slutty bitch and that fucking cynical bastard blaring Led Zeppelin.

“Someday when you’re done sucking Jack’s cock and you’ve swallowed all you can because I’m _sure_ you’d never think to spit his precious spunk into the bin, you ponder on why and when he finally asked you out.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled and wrestled with her. The woman was much stronger than she looked. Her face was a mask of disgust and what could have been pain. Didn’t care. She’d be in lots more pain if I could get my hands around her lily-white throat. Well, on reflection, the pain would only last for two minutes at most…

“Brilliant reply, Ianto, but let this take root in your eidetic brain. Jack only shuffled you up from whore boy to dateable after he came back from that trip with the Doctor, right?”

I refused to talk with the bitch anymore. I wrenched myself from the wall, using the momentum to slam her into the door and hold her against it. She tried to bring a knee up but I was just too smart for that move and my thigh took the impact.

“You do know that you’re his second choice, yes?” I grabbed at her hands. My eyes found hers and I saw nothing but hatred and truth in those hazel depths. “Yeah, that’s right, coffee boy. Ask him. Ask him about that time we almost kissed but he found my engagement ring. Ask him why after he found out that Rhys had proposed and I’d said yes that he turned to you. He did that because he knew he couldn’t have me so he settled for you.”

All the air left my system right down to the oxygen in my bloodstream. “You liar,” I managed to cough out but I knew she had thrown the truth at me. I could see it in her eyes. That was why I flung her across Jack’s office and then walked over to her as she lay writhing on the cold floor. I knelt beside her and wrapped both hands around her neck. The pain in my chest was now equal to the pain in my head. No, no, no. Jack loved me. He did. He’d told me that he did.

“Ianto no,” Gwen gasped as her eyes went round with fright. She kicked and tried to scream. She dug her fingernails into my hands and wrists, drawing blood. The burn of those gouges only made me tighten my grip. “No…no…I love…him too.”

That was the wrong thing for the whore to say.

“Get off her now!” I heard Chadwick but never turned to look at him. I’d kill that skinny fuck too as soon as I got done making sure this slut never spoke such shit about me and Jack ever again. I should’ve looked back at my friend because then the arrow racing through my right biceps wouldn’t have been such a shock. I yelped in pain but continued to throttle Gwen. Chadwick then put a boot to my side and that was the only thing that made me release the death grip I had on my teammate.

She choked and coughed as I picked myself up and glowered at Chadwick who now had a silver arrow pointed right at my left eye.

“Go sit down,” he barked, his Cockney accent thickening with adrenaline. “I mean it, mate. Sit your arse down in that chair.” He jerked his head at Jack’s office chair. I threw a dark look at Gwen rasping and crying and gasping on the floor as Tosh tried to help her to her feet. “Plant your ass, Ianto. Jack’s got me keeping you all from killing each other and I aim to do just that. Sit down.”

I took a step toward the chair resting tight to the wall when a bullet whizzed past my head. Owen put a slug into Chadwick’s left thigh then took a pot shot at Tosh and Gwen. Tosh curled into a ball. Chadwick turned in a blur and let the arrow fly. It hit Owen in the stomach then raced through him to embed itself in the wall across the Hub. Our doctor crumpled to the floor.

“Everyone fucking sit!” Chadwick shouted then hobbled to the door to the office. “You’d think this was fucking America with all the guns everywhere. Bloody feck shot me,” he groaned as he limped over to check on Owen, dark rich blood darkening his whitewashed jeans.

“You shot _me_ with a fucking arrow,” Owen coughed, his hands pressed to the entrance wound. “Fucking hell this headache…”

“Sit. I mean it, everyone sit. You in the chair.” He waved his bow at me. I sat but only because I was in such agony mentally and emotionally I couldn’t stand up anymore.

“God above, my fucking head is going to blow up,” Gwen rasped as she thrashed and scissored her legs. Everywhere one looked there were puddles of blood and injured people. Tosh was weeping and crawling over Gwen to try to get her hands on Chadwick. I slipped from the chair when a flash of white light and pain jackknifed into my brain. The agony doubled me over. I got sick right there beside Jack’s desk, my guts cramping and gnarled.

“Just sit down, luv,” I heard Chadwick telling Tosh. Owen was moaning. Gwen was whimpering and retching, and I was lying on my side in a puddle of vomit and formaldehyde as Gwen’s words dug deeply into my heart.

 

_He settled for you…_

_He settled for you…_

_He settled for you..._

 

**To be continued…**


	7. Love Thy Neighbor - Chapter Seven - 0:00

**Love Thy Neighbor**

**Chapter Seven**

**0:00**

**Jack**

(Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

There are days that you wish you could rewind. Hell, sometimes there are _months_ that we’d like to redo. Simply stop the howling shitstorm that’s blowing around us and leap back into time. Get the clocks at 0:00 and sigh with relief.

Not everyone is lucky enough to own a TARDIS or a functioning vortex manipulator. Only Time Lords had one of the mentioned time travelling/warping items, Time Agents the other. Even those who own those items can only do so much skipping around in time. Crossing your own time lines or interfering with the past can have dire consequences with the future. You know, all those timey-wimey things the Doctor likes to pontificate about.

This was one of those times.

I rolled into the nursery, the wheels on the SUV ripping deep gouges in the wet soil of their nicely tended grounds. A few flowers may have lost their lives as well. The SUV had barely stopped moving and I was out of it, running full bore toward the first of the four murder scenes. The police cordons were still up. They were moving weakly in the rainy breeze. I raced at the yellow tape and leaped over it like an Olympic hurdler.

There was no way the door on greenhouse one could withstand my hitting it like a manic freight train. A sharp pain in my shoulder made me wince but the door broke free from its hinges. I fell through, nearly going to my face, my left arm a little numb from the impact.

I looked up.

There was a small cluster of moths still whipping themselves against the rounded roof. I threw the now open door a dark look.

“Not the most brilliant thing you’ve ever done, Harkness,” I panted as I eyed the moths with nothing less than hatred now. How had something that I’d admired for its beauty suddenly become something disgusting? Same could be asked about ex-wives. Ba-dump-tiss. Good thing Ianto wasn’t here or the glower for that bad pun would be boring into me. I hoped he was safe. I hoped everyone at the Hub was safe.

My gaze dropped from the moths to the ground. A couple dozen of the moon moths – because alien moths sounded stupid – lay dead under my feet. So, they could die. Good. I knew how to handle unwanted pests. An image of John Hart popped up. Okay, so sometimes I misjudged pests but I reckoned I could exterminate some bugs. Slipping out of greenhouse one, I propped the door back up to keep the moths from escaping then I made mad dashes around the other greenhouses. They all were locked tight. Relief flooded through me.

It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. A small shed sat behind the mounds of steaming mulch. The smell of the hot bark was unpleasant. I kicked the door of the shed open and stepped inside.

“Hello sexy,” I said with a sadistic smile then grabbed a small garden sprayer and a bottle of insecticide. I had no clue what kind of poison it was I planned to pump into those greenhouses. It might kill every plant the cloud touched. Hell, it might kill me. That was a chance that had to be taken.

Armed with five gallons of improperly measured and mixed insecticide, I systematically doused every greenhouse. By the time I stepped out of the fourth greenhouse, my lungs were on fire. I might have died just a little bit. I wasn’t sure. Maybe I’d just passed out. It’s a similar experience for me. For others, not so much.

When I came to I was lying on my back, garden sprayer at my side, and cool Welsh rain soaking through every inch of clothing on my cold, shivering body. My eyes burned so I opened them and let the rain wash the insecticide residue from them. A call came through on my Bluetooth, startling me slightly.

“Talk to me,” I said and made a face. God, my mouth tasted dreadful. This is why huffing bug spray is bad kids.

“Jack?”

Ah, Chadwick. “Mostly,” I wheezed, pushing myself into a sitting position.

“Okay, so, here’s the thing. No one here is dead but everyone has a few more holes then when we woke up this morning,” Chadwick informed me. “They were trying to off each other. They’re a right deadly lot when they want to be.”

“Ianto?”

“He’s alive, but in bad shape mentally. They are all. You best get back to your base because I think they’re going to need you more than me or another medic who, by the way, just now has started patching people up while giving me the third degree. I’d say how pretty she is but given how Tosh has been acting, maybe I’d better not. Course, I can’t answer her questions because I don’t know what the fuck happened. You notice a pattern here?”

“Nope. Right, okay, on it.” I ended the call and took my time getting to my feet. I made one last pass through the greenhouses. Not one moth flitted against the roof trying to break free. I prayed that I’d exterminated them all. I’ll confess that grinding the beautiful alien insects under my boot made me feel a bit better. Not much, but a bit. The plants in the greenhouses were starting to look a bit brown around the edges of their leaves. Better dead violets than dead Welshmen and women. It took me some time to get back to the SUV and discover that I’d left the driver’s side door open. The interior was soaked as was the seat.

“Ianto is going to kill me,” I muttered then wished I’d chosen some other saying. I flopped behind the wheel and reached for a CD. Right. Owen had taken them all aside from the one in the player. I sighed, ejected Glenn Miller, and threw it like a Frisbee before shutting the door and cranking over the engine. Silence felt more fitting.

Quietude rode on my soggy shoulders back to the Hub. When I stepped through the blast doors I fumbled to an awkward stop. Blood and chaos could be seen everywhere. Knowing what needed done first, I went to find the jar of moths. There they sat on the middle of my conference table, batting about inside their jar, looking lovely and innocuous. I took the jar and its inhabitants to the deep freeze and tucked them right in with Suzie Costello. Figured since she had nearly ripped this team into shreds she could babysit the moths who had done the same.

I ran to find my team. Several sets of eyes flew to me when I skidded into the sick bay. Gwen sat on one bed, her knees to her chest, crying into her hands. Chadwick was on another bed, arm around Tosh, as Martha tended to a weeping bullet hole in his leg. Owen was sleeping on yet another bed, his upper half bare save for a wide swath of white bandaging around his middle. Then my gaze found Ianto. He’d been crying. His lovely eyes were red, his hair knotted, and his clothes fouled.

“What the hell happened in here, Jack?” Martha asked as she taped Chadwick’s bandage with a bit more vigor than she should. The lad hissed in pain. Martha quickly apologized.

“It was me,” Toshiko weakly said. “I brought them into the Hub. I made everyone touch them. This is my fault.” She broke down into gasping sobs. Chadwick pulled her into his chest and cooed beside her ear, his hand gently stroking her hair. The young man seemed to love her deeply. I was happy to see that because she deserved a loving partner.

“No, it’s not your fault. It’s mine,” I told my team. “I should have made the connection sooner. I’m getting lax, always expecting violent monsters or Cybermen in the basement.” Ianto groaned at the mention. I immediately felt terrible for my unthinking comment. “I’m sorry for not being the leader you all needed me to be. I won’t let inattentiveness cost us so deeply ever again.”

The ones who were awake either nodded at me or tried to talk me out of carrying the burden. All except Ianto. He sat on his cot, his dress shirt lying on the bed beside him, one muscular biceps bandaged, looking at me as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss me or shoot me. Was he still feeling the effects of the moth dust?

I took a step in his direction. Gwen waved me over. Ianto’s expression tightened and he rose to his feet, grabbed his shirt, and headed for the door.

“Ianto, please, I want to talk to you,” I called but he kept walking, his shoulders stiffly set as if he expected a blow to come from behind.

“I can’t be here right now.” He paused just long enough to reply. “I can’t. I – I have to go home.” A shaky inhalation meant to stem more tears followed his announcement and then he was gone. I stood in the center of the sick bay, my team in shambles and bleeding all over themselves, and watched him trip and stumble away. I moved to go after him but Gwen appeared at my side, her face wet with tears and her throat ringed with terrible bruises.

“My God, your neck,” I stammered.

“I don’t blame Ianto,” she whispered, her voice barely a squeak. “I said things…. things to him. God, such terrible things.”

I looped an arm around her. “What did you say?” I asked on a whisper. The others were listening and if what she confessed to saying was what I thought it might be… “Why don’t we go to my office and talk? Can you make it that far?”

“Yes, yes,” she sniffled then bumbled around at my side as I led her to my office. I ignored the look from Martha and Chadwick. They’d have to wait to give me hell. I suspected we had a small window here as Rhys was probably on his way. Great. Another homoerotic face-to-face with her fiancé. I could hardly wait. My day hadn’t been quite fun enough yet. Damn but I wished I’d gotten that shot.

When I stepped into my office my feet sort of stopped moving. The place was a shamble. Broken jars and busted furniture, drying puddles of blood and formaldehyde, and furniture lying on its side.

“Jesus Christ,” I dully said. Gwen shuddered violently as I held her to my side. “Let me get you a chair.”

“No, no, I don’t want a chair. I want you to forgive me.” She turned to face me, grabbing the soggy lapels of my coat and balling them tightly in her fingers. “Jack, I said things to Ianto. Things that I thought I didn’t mean but now that the anger is gone I think I meant them. Some of them… God, I’m a horrible person.”

“No, you are not a horrible person. You’re a human being. We all do terrible things. I mean, have you seen _my_ immortal ledger? Trust me, I’m not getting into heaven any time soon.” I worked on loosening her grip on my lapels.

She didn’t smile at the joke. “Jack, I feel things for you.”

Fuck. Damn. Shit and fuck again. “I know. I felt them too.”

“Oh, right, see, you’re dealing in past tense now…” She kind of wilted a bit. “I love Rhys…”

“I know you do. This thing that’s ‘us’ isn’t ever going to be anything more than what it was.” I was so tired and so traumatized that I wasn’t sure I was saying things as I should. “You have Rhys. You’re getting married. I don’t fool around with married women or men.” I drew in a breath and kept talking. “I have Ianto and I love him. I mean…it shocks me how much I adore the man. We’re working it out and it’s good and rich and fun. He makes me laugh and eases me in ways that…well, he’s a deep part of me. Just like what you have with Rhys. I want this to work. I want to be happy with Ianto.” I stopped to gather my thoughts. “The spark that we had? It’s just a memory for me now. I love you dearly but I love Ianto more. I’m sorry for not addressing this sooner. It was cowardly of me to let this dangle.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve seen you distancing yourself from me in that regard,” she replied, her lovely accent making me smile just a bit. “I think I was just clinging to it for some stupid reason, like if I cocked things up with Rhys I could fall back on you.”

“Thank you. I love being the man a woman settles for,” I teased and she stiffened instantly.

“Jack, go home to Ianto. I said things to him. I think I ruined you and him…well, I think I said something that might – ah hell,” she coughed then hugged me tightly and fiercely before stepping away. “Go to him. Please, make things right with you and him again. I don’t think I could live with myself if I broke you two up.”

“What exactly did you say?” A boulder of dread dropped to my shoulders.

She bit down on the inside of her mouth and shook her head. I wanted to prod her a bit more but Rhys entered the Hub at that moment, bellowing for Gwen. She shuffled off to meet him, leaving me standing in a tacky puddle of blood and formaldehyde wondering what the hell I was going to walk into when I entered Ianto’s flat. The flat. His flat. Gah. _No, Jack, no._ Our _flat is the term you’re looking for._ I headed off to have a chat with Rhys, Chadwick, and Martha and then go home. To _our_ flat. To _my_ Ianto.

 

**To be concluded...**


	8. Love Thy Neighbor - Chapter Eight - The Weight of Love

**Love Thy Neighbor**

**Chapter Eight**

**The Weight of Love**

**Ianto**

(Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.)

 

 

I smelled terrible.

The stench of vomit and formaldehyde turned my stomach. Good thing I didn’t have anything left in me or I’d be getting sick all over myself again. I stood in the middle of my living room, book of poetry in my hand, reeking to high Hell and back, my chest empty as a void in space.

_He settled for you…_

I sat down without looking to see if a chair or the sofa were behind me. Who cared? A broken tailbone couldn’t possibly hurt as badly as this ache in my heart.

_He settled for you…_

I idly flipped pages, seeing nothing, the words blurred as the tears I was trying to keep at bay broke free again. I’d tried to kill her. Gwen. I’d wrapped my fingers around her throat and tried to squeeze the life out of her. It had felt good too. Right. Like something that needed done. My book slid from my fingers and landed on the floor with a soft ‘thud’ that barely registered. I wept into my palms for the longest time, shaken and sick with myself and my actions.

When the door opened, my head snapped up. There he stood. Jack. The man who held my heart. He cautiously stepped into the flat, his gaze touching on me as he gently shut the door. I sucked in a shaky breath. I felt embarrassed that he’d caught me crying.

“Ianto…” He stood by the closed door as if he were afraid to come closer.

“If I ask you something will you tell me the truth?” I coughed, my voice thick and pained.

“Of course.” Jack looked ghastly as well. His hair was flat to his head, his eyes were haunted, and his clothes were damp and wrinkled. No. That’s a lie. He never looked ghastly to me. Even when he was beaten and filthy as he was now, he looked incredible because I loved him so.

I had to swallow several times before I could ask him what I wanted to ask. “You remember coming back from that mystery trip with the Doctor.”

“Yes,” he cautiously replied. Water dripped off his pant legs to the carpet. I could have cared less. What was a water stain on a rented rug when your heart was dying a slow death inside your breast? “I found you and the team facing off against that blowfish. You looked hot as hell that night.”

“Don’t, please. By all that is holy do _not_ turn this conversation into something sexual or try to lighten my mood by being flippant,” I snarled.

“Right, I’m sorry. I would never be flip when you’re in this much pain.” He took a couple steps closer. His boots squelched they were so sodden. I studied his shoes for a moment. Such big feet he had. Nicely formed toes and a lovely high arch. If you nipped that arch in the right spot he’d squirm and giggle in this incredibly stupid and utterly unmanly way…

“After that bit with the blowfish…we went back to the Hub.” I looked up from his wet boots to his handsome face. He wet his lips nervously. “You said you’d come back for all of us.”

“Yes, I did, but I said that I’d come back for _you_ first,” he gently corrected and took another step nearer.

“Right, of course. You’d come back for me. So, then explain to me why it was that you and Gwen almost had a snog not long after. Tell me why when you found out she was engaged you _then_ decided to ask me out on a date. Why was I nothing more than a shag before that moment?”

He took a slow breath in then released it, dropping down into a crouch in front of me. I had no wish to harm him. I loved him. More than I should. More than any man should love another man. He picked up my book of poetry and opened it to the page I’d been on, the one marked with a slim ribbon of pale green.

“William Carlos Williams?” His gaze left the pages to touch on me for a second. I couldn’t read his emotions but whatever he was feeling he seemed solidly in control of his feelings. “Yellow, yellow, yellow, it eats into the leaves…”

“…smears with saffron the horned branches that lean heavily against a purple sky,” I answered then dragged the back of my hand under my right eye. “Did you settle for me, Jack?”

“No. I did _not_ settle for you. Was that what Gwen said to you?” He dropped the book of poems to the coffee table. It landed next to his latest read, a book about the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures.

“Yes, it’s part of what she said. Although to be fair I called her a dirty whore who wanted to shag every man on the team while I tried to strangle her,” I shakily replied then coughed out a horrid, stale barking laugh.

“Ianto, what we did today was not our fault, it was just a reaction to what must be a psychotropic drug in the dust of those damn moth wings.” He sat down next to me, carefully not touching me in any way. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. His wet coat was going to ruin the sofa. Didn’t care.

“Maybe it just amplified our emotions.” I know it certainly had for me. “I’ve been carrying those feelings about Gwen deep inside for months now. I hid them from you because every time you heard me speaking up about my insecurity you got mad.”

“Christ, Ianto.” He looked right at me, his gaze searching mine. “I’m sorry for making you think that you couldn’t be honest about your feelings.”

I had to look away. If I didn’t I’d fall into his arms, beg for his forgiveness, and then lure him into making love to me. This time…this time I couldn’t let my love and desire for him override what had to be said.

“You did, and I let you, so there that is,” I sighed then inhaled, pulling in Jack’s amazing smell. His wet skin and hair doubled the scent, making me feel weak and wanton. “Why did you want to kiss her if you had come back for me? Make me understand this, Jack, because I’m dying inside.”

He twisted to face me. “Can I touch you?”

“No, I wish you’d not right now.”

“Okay, that’s okay.” He continued gazing at me though. I loved his eyes. The fine lines at the corners that showed how much he had lived and laughed. “I’m not sure why I did that.” I snorted rudely and he wrinkled his nose. “Pretty lame, I know, but I don’t honestly know why that moment took place. Maybe I was scared of how deeply I felt for you. I missed you like crazy, Ianto.”

“Okay, so in your mind coming back and trying to grab a snog from Gwen was the right way to handle missing me so bloody much?” He winced slightly at the vehemence in my tone. “Sorry, but that’s just stupid. It’s stupid and ignorant and craven.”

“It was, yes. I’m not denying I was a prick. I’ve never denied that, Ianto. I’m a swaggering cock who is so terrified of losing the people he loves that he intentionally sabotages every good relationship to avoid the pain of watching someone else I care for die.”

He took my hand. He had to peel it from my thigh. His fingers were damp and chilled as they wiggled in between mine.

“Ianto, Gwen and I…that was something that started but never caught fire, not really.” He rubbed his thumb over mine. “And I know it sounds bad, and looks bad. Shit, it _was_ bad. It was a stupid moment of weakness and fear…I just – God, this is hard.”

He lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. Two wild emotions raced over me. The need to curl into his lap and have him hold me forever, and the need to punch him in the face as hard as I could. Like I’d done to Gwen…Lord above, what kind of monster lives inside me?

“And now? Tell me how you feel about her now.” He opened his mouth to speak but I rolled over him. “I know it’s petty and shows how weak I am but I need to know that if we stay together there will never be any kind of news blast like the one I got today. If you were to ever sleep with her – or anyone – while claiming to love me I’d… well…shit, you really can’t trust anyone, can you? Is there one fucking person I can trust?”

“Me,” he said. “You can trust me. I will never keep anything from you again.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Would you tell me?”

He smiled. It wasn’t that blinding smile but a soft one. One that told me that he would tell me if I demanded to be told. “Ask me anything. I’m done keeping secrets from you.” He placed another kiss to my knuckles then flipped my hand over to flutter kisses over my wrist.

There were a million questions I had for him. They jumbled up inside my mind. “I’m not sure I can do this anymore. I know that’s not a question, it’s a statement but I’m just so damn sad. I think I need help but who can I talk to about what goes on here? Can you imagine the notes a therapist would jot down about me? I’d be committed before the session were over.” The laugh that came out of me was bitter.

“Talk to _me_ , Ianto. I’m your partner. I love you. If you’re battling depression, talk to me. We’ll get you on some meds. I’ll lighten your work load. Hey, how about we take a vacation?”

“Right,” I scoffed as I stared at our intermingled fingers. “I’m done begging you to spend time with me away from Torchwood. Maybe we need to spend some time apart.”

He slid closer, his knee now gently pushing into my thigh, his hold on my hand bordering on painful. “This is _me_ asking _you_. We all need a break. Let me take you away for a week or two. Just you and me. Martha can stay and hang out with the others.”

“Jack, we’re all going to need time. Tosh maybe most of all.” She had brought the damn moths into our midst and was feeling the guilt deeply. And deep down I knew I’d have to face Gwen. She and I had issues that only we could deal with. “I just… I don’t know…”

“Right, well, then this is a good time to take a trip for us. I’ll turn things over to Martha for a few weeks,” he said, his eyes filled with hope. “I trust her. Ianto, please, we need some time to rebuild us and the trust that we’ve lost. I have a thing that I do every five years or so, right around the fall equinox. Come with me to Scotland. We’ll hang out with Archie and maybe wear kilts. I’ll make love to you surrounded by heather. Please, Ianto, let me do this for us. Don’t leave me now. I just got you back.”

He pressed my hand to his lips. I didn’t know what to say.

“I love you, Ianto, please, give us some time to recover…to find each other again.”

His blue eyes were dark with fear and unshed tears. Jack didn’t cry often, not like me. To see him on the brink softened the sharp stabbing agony in my heart. Maybe I was just a foolish, love-struck man but I felt the sincerity in his plea.

“Okay, yes, a few weeks in Scotland sounds marvelous,” I replied and was surprised that the idea made me feel a bit lighter. I was still unsure. Still hurting. Still lost. Still so fucking in love with him…

He kissed me on the mouth hard and deep. The depth of his joy and passion stunned me a bit.

 “Thank you. I promise this trip will be a new beginning for us. One with no secrets,” he vowed.

I wasn’t sure he could live up to that but I loved the man too much – and was too weak – to not give us a chance at that new beginning. Hope springs eternal and all that. Jack leaned into me, his weight settling on my chest, his mouth tempting mine into a wet, needy reply. This would lead to sex, I knew it. I could feel the need starting to build inside me, making my balls heavy as my cock hardened.

“Jack, no, not now.” He drew back, sliding off me and getting to his feet. I sat up. He paced the flat, rolling his head as he tried to work off the lust. “Let’s just… I need a break from intimacy like this. Sex will muddy things.”

“You don’t have to explain not wanting to make love, Ianto.” He walked around the sofa a few times. I rubbed at my face then got to my feet.

“I need a shower.” He nodded at the pronouncement. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked into the bedroom we shared. The bed was neatly made. I wanted to rip it apart but didn’t because that was not how a person maintained control and right now control was all that was keeping me upright. I stripped off my clothes. I pondered about burning the lot as I held the foul mound of dirty clothing.

“Let me toss them out.” Jack stepped up beside me and lifted the mess from my hands. I made my way into the shower. The hot water pounding on my face was calming. I scrubbed at my cheeks and pushed my fingers through my hair. The stink of formaldehyde filled the stall. I started crying again. All I could see was Gwen lying on the floor, gasping for breath as I strangled her. There was something dark inside me and that knowledge was terrifying.

Jack stepped around the curtain, taking me into his arms and holding me as violent sobs ripped through me. He whispered and stroked me, told me kind things, promised to love and cherish me for as long as I walked this earth. I hung off him like a wet shirt. He washed my hair for me, tipping my head back so the shampoo didn’t run into my face. His strong hands soaped my body. He turned me into the water, rubbing his hands over my flesh to help rinse the thick lather from my skin. My eyes drifted shut as my head dropped back to rest on his shoulder.

“Lift your arm,” he said then ran the bar of soap tenderly over the stitches in my biceps. He kissed me under my left ear, his arms tightening around me. “I love you,” he murmured into my ear. “I don’t think you know just how much I adore you.”

We lingered in the water, touching and caressing but never allowing things to get overtly sexual. Jack was the gentlest of partners. His touch soft and soothing. He dried me off then led me to bed, crawling in beside me, and cradling me close.

“I’m so damn tired,” he confessed around a yawn.

My reply was a mumbling mess as sleep grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me under. When I surfaced, Jack was lying beside me, his arm resting on his stomach. I drank in his profile as he rested wondering if I’d made the right decision to go to Scotland with him. I reached out to touch his chest. His heart thudded steady and strong under my palm.

“I promise things will be different from now on, Ianto,” he murmured before opening his eyes and letting his head roll toward me. “Will you give me a chance to fix what I’ve fucked up?”

“How dare I not give you a second chance when you’ve given me so many?” I propped my head up by leaning it on my hand, my fingertips still resting on his pectoral. “You let me come back after Lisa. You forgave me that nonsense in the basement of Mandy’s pub. I turned on you and opened the rift and you forgave me that as well.” My list of offenses against the man I loved began to choke me. “I just…well, what kind of man would I be to not forgive you a slip when you’ve forgiven me so much.”

“We’re all imperfect creatures, Ianto. And, I love you, so forgiving you is easy. It’s staying mad at you that’s hard.”

I smirked a bit then dropped a kiss to his chest. Just a gentle one.

“I have the same problem it seems,” I said. The smile with the dimples broke out and I was lost. “I need to go talk to Gwen.”

He nodded, his hand coming down on mine as it lay on his chest. “I think we all need to talk to each other.”

A yawn overtook me. “How long did we sleep?”

“Not long. A couple hours. Why don’t you go back to sleep? I’m going to go in and check on everyone. Maybe start getting things set to rights.” He tossed the covers aside then sat up, rolling his shoulders until one popped and he grimaced. I smiled just a bit as he stood and stretched.

“Why does your shoulder always crack like that?” I enquired as I rolled to my back to enjoy the sight of him parading about nude. His bare ass made me forget my name.

“It’s a long boring story,” he replied offhandedly then caught himself. He gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry. I’m a master deflector. It’s a slightly defective shoulder joint caused by one too many dislocations.”

“Shouldn’t that go back to factory settings when you come back?” I asked, sitting up slowly, the soft sheet gliding down my chest to pool in my lap.

“Factory settings,” he chuckled. “This was part of my original genetic makeup. I played a lot of rough and tumble sports as a kid. So, anything that was me before the incident is me now.”

“Will you tell me about that day? The day when you became immortal?”

I saw the reluctant flash in his eyes but he nodded. “That will be one of the first tales I tell you when we get to Scotland.”

“That’s blackmail, Jack.”

“Yes, yes it is.”

He leaned in to steal a kiss then stepped away from our bed to begin dressing. I joined him in pulling on clothes. Nothing fancy. Just jeans and an old t-shirt with the Cardiff Devils ice hockey team’s emblem on it. The ride to the Hub was subdued. I think each of us were trying to prepare for our own battles. My stomach was a terrible mess. I should have eaten. I’d still not gotten the weight back that I lost while I’d been on Edie’s planet. My appetite had also not come back as it should have. Another sign of the depression nipping at my heels, no doubt.

Jack walked behind me, keeping me moving when my steps faltered or slowed. I stepped through the blast doors and paused. Rhys and Gwen stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Tosh. Owen, leaning heavily on a cane and Chadwick, pushed around the others. He looked wan and washed out, much like all of us. My gaze was stuck on Gwen, and hers seemed to be bound to me.

“I’m so sorry,” all four Torchwood employees said in unison. Owen snorted, then groaned. Tosh began crying softly, and Gwen ran at me. I gathered her into a sound hug and just held on. We both began sniffling and talking, trying to apologize to the other.

“The things I said…that happened…I’m just sick over it,” Gwen said into my neck.

“Me too.” I rubbed her back, my sight linked with Jack’s. It was a start. Maybe we should set up a damn therapy meeting every Tuesday at nine. I could make the coffee.

Owen limped over as did Tosh. Jack threw his arms around the tight huddle of his workers then kissed my hair.

“It’s okay. I’ll just grab a hug with Rhys and Chadwick here,” Martha shouted over the snivels and choked apologies.

“Get on in here,” Jack said then stepped back, making room on his right side for the others. His left arm stayed on my shoulders as Martha leaped into the group. “I’m always happy to rub up against a skinny guy wearing a hospital johnny.”

“If I feel something poking me in my bare arse I’ll slap you shitless, Jack,” Owen flung out but the threat was lacking.

“I’ll just stay back here,” Rhys interjected. Chadwick slid under my arm, kissed me on the cheek, and then announced that he was quite okay with rubbing up against a skinny bloke in an open-backed johnny as well. We all had a good chuckle over that one.

Things broke up after that. I asked Gwen to give me a moment. We left the others and made our way to the conference room. I shut the door and turned to face her. She looked ill-at-ease.

“I know we have things that need to be worked out, Ianto,” she said, her smile reedy and unsure. “But we’ve a start, yes?”

“He knows what you said to me,” I told her, my voice flat. The tentative smile slipped from her face. “I told him. He had a right to know.”

“I didn’t mean it, Ianto.”

“Yes, I think you did. I think you meant every damn word.” Anger flared up inside me which rather shocked me. I’d thought I’d been drained of any big emotion. “Just as I meant everything that I said to you. The physicality of my actions horrifies me but the intense jealousy? That was all me. I’m not proud of it…” I had to pause to swallow, her eyes were huge now, her lower lip trapped between her teeth. “But I’m done burying it to appease you or to not make waves. I’m done being walked on by everyone here.”

“Why did you tell him? Dammit, Ianto!” She began pacing the room, tossing dark looks at me.

“Because he needed to know what was said, what kind of emotions are simmering just below the surface of this team.” I folded my arms over my Cardiff Devil’s shirt. “He deserves to know the truth.”

“I would have told him, in time. You had no right to do that! No right at all!”

“I had every right! He’s _mine_. I’m sick of the looks filled with yearning you throw at him. No more. It ends now. Jack is with me. He chose to be with me. You’re about to be married. Have some bloody self-respect. If you can’t drum that up, at least treat Rhys with the dignity that he deserves.”

She stopped pacing to gape at me. “Well, you’ve grown a fat pair of bollocks, haven’t you?”

“Looks that way,” I replied in a cold monotone. She then left, just walked out with a stiff spine and dewy eyes. Jack came in a few minutes later and sat down on my left at the head of the table.

“Everything okay with you and Gwen?” he asked.

“Things will be fine. In time.”

He thought on that for a moment then let it go. “Martha said she’d be happy to come back in a week or two to help Gwen run things while we’re in Scotland,” he said as he sank back into his seat. “She’s taken a moth to study. Tosh wanted nothing to do with them.”

“Where are the others she brought back?” I pinched the bridge of my nose and let my eyelids drop down.

“I put them in with Suzie.” That made my eyes pop open. “They seemed to belong together. I plan to incinerate the beautiful bastards just as soon as I can find a container of flamethrower fuel.”

I bobbed my head. Burning them sounded good. “So, Gwen in charge? That’s new.” Mental exhaustion was setting in.

“It’s time to juggle responsibility between the two of them. Someday, it’ll be your turn.” He reached up to rub his eyes with the tips of his fingers.

“I’m in no hurry.”

A calm, quiet moment passed.

“Martha had no news about your DNA testing in London. It’ll take at least four weeks for the diagnostic geneticists to even _look_ at your case. I’m sorry. I know this is just adding to the stress of things.”

“Do you love me?”

He lowered his fingers from his tired eyes and looked right at me. “Yes, with all my heart.”

“Then I’ll be able to deal with the stresses as long as you’re by my side. I didn’t have that before when things were so dark. It was…” I couldn’t locate the words. “Why is love so miserably hard?”

“Because to fully participate you have to put everything you are out there.”

“True,” I sighed as the Hub slipped into silence. If you inhaled deeply enough, you could pick up the metallic tint of blood. It made me sickly and sad anew. “I’ve got everything I have out there. You?”

“Yes, it’s all out there now, Ianto.”

“Then we’ll muddle through, you and I, won’t we?”

“Yeah, we will.” He yawned widely. “I could go for some eggs and dark rye toast. How about you?”

My gut was still a mess. “Scrambled and not yolky maybe.”

“I can do scrambled. You make and butter the toast?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Yeah, you do.” He pushed up from his chair and offered me his hand. I slid my palm over his then let him tug me to my feet. “I’m glad you’re staying around to make toast. I can never tell when that rye of yours is toasted properly.”

“You’ll get it right someday.”

“I sure as hell hope so.”

 

 

 

Acknowledgments to William Carlos Williams for his poem “A Love Song” which Ianto and Jack read a few lines from in this chapter. To read all of this beautiful poem follow this link:

<https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/love-song>

 

 

**The End**

**Next up we’re going to have another “Day in the Life” one-shot and a wee little something from another fandom that demanded it be written RIGHT NOW. After that we’ll be giving** **Jack and Ianto some time to heal emotionally and physically before they head to Scotland. They’re going to need the rest.**

 

**Filling in will be Captain John Hart in his first series in my Torchwood world. Look for**

**“Twinkle, Twinkle, Deadly Star” to kick off after our next one shot and a Final Fantasy XV short!**

**Yours in fiction—**

**Feral**


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